Jill's smile had widened ten-fold when Thomas gave her the money for her crops. The harvest went well this year, and not only was she able to store enough food to last her through the winter, but she was given a large paycheck for her hard work.

Oh, and also Steiner's hard work too, she mustn't forget his help.

He wasn't the fastest of workers, but he had an idea what to do. He seemed to do better with plants; it's almost as if the animals had some hostility towards him. Either way, she was thankful he came along. With the extra help in hand, she was able to harvest all her crops and gather all the eggs and milk to ship. In any normal circumstance, she would have had to wait till the next day to attend to her animals due to her over planting. In the distance, Jill saw a familiar face walking towards the farm. She waved.

"Oi, Steiner, I want you to meet someone."

He's seen the man before, who could forget those bushy eyebrows? Steiner has never actually talked with the man face to face, but he knew quite a bit about him.

"Steiner, this is Takakura, co-owner of the farm. Takakura, this is Steiner, I hired him to help out as a farm hand."

Takakura gave him the one over, and seemed to disapprove. An awkward silence held for about a minute.

Holding out his hand, Steiner said, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Takakura, I hope to be of good service."

Takakura looked at him like he was a foreign tourist, "Well…Steiner, you seem to be a…well kept young man. You a city slicker?"

"Takakura!"

Takakura snorted. "It's not that hard to tell Jill, all I'm going to say is that he better be a damn good worker if you plan to keep him."

Jill leaned forward to the older man, out of Steiner's ear shot. "He was literally frozen on my door step Takakura, are you saying that I should have told him to beat it?"

"No, of course not...it's just that-"

"Then quit worrying! He's already helped out a lot, think about the time we'll save with an extra farm hand!"

"Well…Alright, but I've just got one question, where is he supposed to sleep?"

"…..oh." she hadn't thought about that.

Steiner gently butted in. "If you don't mind me having a say, I don't mind sleeping in the barn."

"That's not such a good idea. It gets pretty rank in there during snow storms, you can stay in my house Steiner. I just recently had my house expanded so I have a guest room now."

Takakura raised an eyebrow slightly. "But you're a girl Jill-."

"Don't be so old fashioned Tak! It's not like we're sharing a bed." Jill smiled, she handed Takakura a large crate. "I packed some of the extra fall crops for you. The carrots came in pretty late, but they'll taste just fine."

Takakura just mumbled. "Your Dad would disapprove of this so much…" but he left to his cabin with no other objections. At least, he didn't say them loud enough for Jill to hear.

Both of the young adults watched Takakura walk back. Steiner tugged his black beanie down a little over his ears. "I'm going to assume the reason that you want me to live with you is because of the deal?"

"Sort of, but mostly because if you're going to work for me, you're going to be doing some of my house chores." She turned to him and handed him an envelope. "Here, it's your first pay check. You earned it noob." She turned to her house and noticed that he was following her. "The hell? What are you doing?"

"I'm living with you, remember."

Dinner was slightly awkward. There was no getting around it. From food preparation to actually eating the meal, she could not break the thick tension.

"You don't like curry noodles?" she slurped hers with no problem, but Steiner looked at his with hidden disgust.

"I'm afraid no maiden." He sighed. "It's a pity to waste this meal, you put so much work into it. I apologize."

Jill laughed. "No worries, If you don't like it you don't have to eat it. I made some red curry last night, you want the leftovers?"

"That would be preferable." He smiled a bit. 'What a pretty smile.' She thought as she got up to re-heat the curry. When she came back, she noticed he was curiously staring at her wall, "I see you've taken interest in my scroll." He looked back to her as she set down his curry.

The scroll, was something that Jill found in Tak's attic about two weeks ago during a hunt for his old accounting books. She had stumbled upon it, and found it to be rather pretty, and familiar. She had then remembered that when she was younger, her mother told her a story, which was similarly illustrated on the scroll. On the scroll, was a wreath of forget-me not's, kneeling below it, was a woman figure with black hair. For sentimental reasons, Jill had decided to hang it in her house.

"It's rather pretty; I'm assuming it's a fifteenth century piece?"

Jill felt rather impressed. "You'd get along with my friend Flora. Are you into old art as well?"

Steiner chuckled, "You could say that. I dealt with quite a bit of old pieces back when I lived in the cities. Mostly with art pieces." He turned his attention back to the scroll. "It looks like it's worth quite a bit. Is there history behind this?"

She sighed. "Sort of. It was something I found a few weeks ago. It reminded me of an old childhood story." She looked up to find Steiner very interested. Jill laughed. "It really won't make much sense unless you've lived here for a while."

"If it's not too much fair maiden, I'd like to hear it." He said patiently.

Jill smiled to herself. It was her most favorite story that her mother had told her. "A long time ago," she started, "A great drought came and destroyed the once powerful Kingdom."

"There were many reasons that the drought had occurred, but the most widely accepted idea was that the Harvest God was angry that no one paid attention to his sister, the Harvest Goddess. In order to appease him, he demanded that the people as a whole must give up one person to become a servant of the Witch Princess as punishment for the people's rudeness. Being the Witch Princess' servant was a pretty big punishment because she worked her servants to a never ending exhaustion. It was decide, that the fiancée of the prince of the valley, was to become the chosen servant. Her name was long forgotten, but she was known as 'the foreign beauty of the east.'

"Yet, one person in the valley did not agree with this. The prince himself, who was very much in love with this woman, did not want her to suffer for this unjust fate. He instead, ordered a simple farm man to give up his only daughter instead. She was equally beautiful, but unlike the rest of the valley, she actually remembered to give offerings to the Harvest Goddess. So the daughter and princess switched places, and for a time, all was at peace.

"Until the Witch Princess herself realized, that the girl was accustomed to hard work. Realizing this, the Witch Princess told the Harvest God who became enraged. He had been tricked! He then, as an ultimate punishment to both the people of the valley and the prince, had the Witch Princess lock up the foreign beauty under thousands of floors underneath the earth in a cave, filled with demons to guard her. The Prince's punishment was to forever be reborn until he freed his beloved."

"Did he ever free her?" asked Steiner curiously. Jill laughed. He was genuinely curious!

"It's just a legend noob. It's actually true!" she got up, and began to clean the table.

"C'mon, let's call it a night."